Harvey Bennett put R.I. hockey on the map

Tom Army, who has been around rinks in Rhode Island for the better part of seven decades, calls the late Harvey Bennett the godfather of hockey in this state.

Mark Divver Assistant Sports Editor markdivver

Tom Army, who has been around rinks in Rhode Island for the better part of seven decades, calls the late Harvey Bennett the godfather of hockey in this state.

That title certainly fits, but I’ll go a step further: A framed portrait of Bennett — wearing his goalie pads and vintage Rhode Island Reds sweater, of course — should hang in every rink in the state.

It’s the least the hockey community could do to pay tribute to a man who had a profound and lasting impact on the sport and on the development of some of the best players to ever come out of Rhode Island.

In recognition of his accomplishments as a player, Bennett will be inducted into the American Hockey League Hall of Fame on Monday morning at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Providence. The Vets, without a doubt, is a much classier venue than the smoky old Rhode Island Auditorium, where Bennett guarded the cage from 1947 to 1958.

As outstanding as Bennett’s playing AHL career was, what truly sets him apart is what he did for the game here after he hung up his pads.

Bennett was instrumental in tilling the soil and planting the seeds for what grew into a truly remarkable harvest of players.

The success of his sons — three played in the NHL, one in the WHA and another in the IHL — and other players under his watch opened eyes and minds in the tradition-bound NHL to the idea that players from Rhode Island were good enough to play in the world’s best league.

The groundwork was laid at his hockey school at the Auditorium during the 1960s.

Every Sunday morning, some of the best young players in the state learned the game from ex-pros Bennett and Norm Calladine, like Harvey a former Boston Bruin and Rhode Island Red who settled here.

Here’s a small sampling of the students: the Bennett brothers, Joe and David Cavanagh, Dan DeMichele, Rich McLaughlin, Tim Regan, Tom Mellor, Teddy Bryand, John Harwood. If you’re not familiar with those names, look them up — you’ll be amazed.

“We’d do some drills, and then we’d drop the puck and go. Scrimmaging was the most fun. It was the highlight of the week,” remembers Jim Bennett, who is director of economic development for the City of Providence and chairman of the Rhode Island Convention Center.

“(Auditorium owner) Lou Pieri did not rent that rink out to anybody, but because my father spent 12 years with the Reds, he let him have the ice for one hour a week. We had the benefit of having some of the Reds there. I can remember (NHL Hall of Famer) Eddie Giacomin coming out and playing with us.

“It was not about age. It was about ability. You might have a 12-year-old kid playing with a 17-year-old kid. My father was very good at making the game simple. Ultimately, that was his genius, the way he translated it to all of us.”

And so by the early 1970s it became possible for a young player from Rhode Island to not only dream of making it to the National Hockey League, but to actually live that dream.

After an All-American career at Brown University, Curt Bennett — the oldest of Harvey and Diana’s six boys — broke into the NHL with St. Louis in 1971-72. One of only a handful of ex-collegians in the league, Curt was a pioneer, becoming the first American-trained player to score 30 goals in the NHL, which he did twice.

The fact that Curt is not in the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame is a travesty, but that’s a subject for another time.

“The Bennetts grew up in a time when Americans just didn’t make it to the NHL,” said Mathieu Schneider of Woonsocket, who played 20 seasons in the NHL, retiring in 2010.

“There were a lot of great college players in the U.S., but they were never able to make that jump to the NHL. There was a perception that they were soft, not tough enough. It was a much different game back then.”

But a couple of years after Curt broke in, Cranston’s Mellor made the Detroit Red Wings. John Bennett played for Philadelphia of the World Hockey Association. Then two more Bennett brothers, Harvey Jr. and Bill, broke into the NHL. Riverside’s Ron Wilson — also the son of a pro hockey lifer — made it, too.

By the 1980s, the trickle of Rhode Islanders had turned into a small stream.

In 1983, a dozen years after Curt Bennett’s NHL debut, Brian Lawton of Cumberland and Mount St. Charles became the first U.S. high school player in history to be taken overall in the NHL Draft.

In 1995, Bryan Berard of Woonsocket was taken first overall, and his Mount teammate Brian Boucher was selected in the first round, too. Mountie Jeff Jillson of North Smithfield went in the first round in 1999.

Make no mistake, those players had great coaching and put in the work to reach their dream, but it would have been much more difficult to get there if guys like the Bennett brothers hadn’t broken through.

“Harvey built the foundation,” says Curt Bennett.

“All the Bennetts were certainly role models for me,” said Schneider, who is now a special assistant to Don Fehr, the executive director of the NHL Players’ Association.

“A lot of the kids growing up in Rhode Island saw that the Bennetts made it, and that gives you inspiration and hope that you could do the same thing. I don’t know if there’s a family that’s done any more for Rhode Island hockey than the Bennett family,” said Schneider.